Tonight was my first official Limmud. For those who don’t know, Limmud is a British-Jewish Charity organization whose mission is “Wherever you find yourself, Limmud will take you one step further along your Jewish journey.” Founded in the United Kingdom by the amazing Mr. Clive Lawton (awesome live speaker BTW), Limmud was a mode or method of learning for Jews in the UK. Now some thirty years later, Limmud has grown into an international organization organizing Jewish learning events around the globe. As a matter of fact, Limmud will have a Shanghai event in early April. (I will be going for sure!)
How Limmud relates to my own story? Well, we should be a big happy family! I’m still in the beginnings of my Jewish journey, I look to Limmud to provide additional resources and assistance in moving along in this journey. In all my touch points with Jewish culture, there is much to learn and not a Pope in sight (explain the Pope thing later). Mr. Clive Lawton, one of the original founders of Limmud gave two interesting talks at the Hong Kong event. One is “Weird Tales from the Talmud” and the other “Are there prophets anymore”. Afterwards, I hurriedly grabbed Clive to chat about his organization Limmud. He is such a jovial, fun, and an engaging speaker and totally in the know about every aspect of Jewish people and its history. He gave me some history of the organization and the reasons behind its humble beginnings. Clive mentioned in the “Weird Tales from the Talmud” talk that Jews, unlike Christians, do not like the idea of having a Pope-like figure. That’s why I made my earlier comment about not a Pope in sight.
I wish I can write more but it’s almost midnight and I have group project meeting tomorrow morning for my Social Policy Research class. I will blog more about Limmud next week as I prepare for my Limmud number 2 in Shanghai.
Hope everyone is well!
